


Raindrops

by ghostwriter00797



Category: Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters (Cartoon)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Grieving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-27 04:37:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15016823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostwriter00797/pseuds/ghostwriter00797
Summary: Jake only takes them out when it rains, because the rain is the only way he knows how to grieve anymore.OrJake has a harder time dealing with his mother's passing than he lets on.





	Raindrops

(Jake only takes them out on rainy nights.)

The patter of raindrops on the roof covers up the creak of the closet door, the small scrape of the cover on the secret compartment his mother helped him build when he was little. As much as she loved his father, she knew how invasive he got when he was worried.

There's not much in it now. Not like there used to be. All that's left is dust and paper scraps and a shoebox in the corner. He's always careful, pulling it out gently. The walk to his bed is never quiet enough, the squeak of the floor boards deafening in the silence. Every shift of the house is someone else, his father coming to see why he's still up. When he gets there, he lets out the breath he didn't know he was holding.

He always pulls out the teddy bear first. It was hers when she was a child, singed from an accident with a match but better for it. He holds it close, rocks back and forth, and if he concentrates enough he can still smell her favorite perfume. It's a lifeline, just like the photograph that comes next. It's old, worn, soft to the touch. It bends like fabric, but he can still see every detail in the flashes of light. He knows it by heart. His mother and father on their wedding day.

She practically glows in the photograph, face scrunched in laughter with cake on her nose. His father stands beside her, his face almost completely obscured from the piece she'd thrown. They're perfect together _\--were_ perfect together--and he aches for everything to be alright again.

He wonders if she knew she would die the way she did. If she knew how badly his father would take it. She always had a way of knowing.

God he misses her. Sure, he has the flash drive in there, with the pictures and the videos, but these are the only two physical reminders he has left that she was _here_. The only two things he was able to secret away before his father packed everything else away in storage and erased every trace of her presence. Mark Armstrong deals with grief in the only way he knows how, after all.

His father won't talk about her, hasn't even spoken her name in the year that she's been gone. Jake is alone, floundering in a sea of grief that can only be calmed by days like this. Days when the wind screams, thunder rolls, and lightning streaks across the sky. Her favorite kind of weather. Her perfect chaos to his father's strict order.

Holding the bear and the photograph, rocking and listening to the storm rage outside, he can almost feel her there with him. He can close his eyes and pretend that she's sitting  right next to him, smiling. That the shift of weight is her, not him. He knows it's wishful thinking, but it helps ease the pain in his heart.

And when the rain stops or his father wakes up for work or he can't stay awake any longer, he hides them away again, as carefully as he brought them out. He falls asleep and dreams of waking up to find his mother waiting for him in the kitchen, to tell him that it was all a nightmare, that she's not going anywhere.

He always knows it's a lie.

He opens his eyes and pushes back the tears and pretends that he isn't wishing that it had been him instead. That his mother was still alive and his father was still his father. That she hadn't left that night at his request.

It doesn't get better, but it never gets worse and honestly, that's all he can ask for.


End file.
